Gentleman's Agreement review!

Perhaps there was just enough We Can Do It! idealism left over from WWII that Gentleman's Agreement finally got made into a blockbuster film. The best selling book had bounced around Hollywood for some time before Darryl Zanuck and Fox decided to buck the safe studio system to film this expose' of Antisemitism in polite New York society. Interesting to note that while many of the grand old studios were actually run and owned by Jewish immigrants, none of them wanted to break with the patriotic, anti-Communism sentiment of the nation in the post war years. It was dangerous anyway to make a film so critical of American society with HUAC hearings just around the corner to nab any suspicious commie types, not to mention whether anyone would actually pay money to see it.

Make the film Zanuck did and brought in first time director Elia Kazan who was on the verge of a memorable career along with worthies Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and a personal favorite, John Garfield. The film is also in gloriously dark black and white to illustrate the shades of gray that Phil (Peck) finds as a magazine writer posing as a Jewish person to write an expose' on Antisemitism. He encounters differing levels of prejudice and outright bigotry among people in his building and among his co-workers. Even Kathy (McGuire), the liberal socialite that Phil falls in love with asks him to back off, fearing the retaliation of her social set and neighborhood. We, along with Phil, witness the more blatant bigotry of name calling and bullying, along with the more subtler kinds of exclusion such as a nearby hotel that quietly finds no vacancies for potential Jewish visitors.

While it is hard for the modern viewer to connect with these instances of bigotry and segregation against Jews in the late forties, perhaps we should substitute African Americans, Latino Americans, Asians or Gays within the category of the person different from us. Kazan's film can be as relevant to us today as we encounter the glass ceilings that are placed in the way of Americans based on race, religion, economic background or sexual preference. While at times Gentleman's Agreement can be a bit heavy handed and over dramatic in its presentation of social injustice, its message is still all too relevant and compelling for us today.

TH Reviews rating of Gentleman's Agreement: 4.5 stars out of 5!